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Oct 30, 2011 at 12:01 AMOct 30, 2011 at 11:13 AM

Nothing good ever comes easy. So here's the good: When a rebuilt I-71/670 interchange opens in the summer of 2014, you'll have an extra lane at your disposal - going both directions on Downtown interstates.

Robert Vitale, The Columbus Dispatch

Nothing good ever comes easy.

So here’s the good: When a rebuilt I-71/670 interchange opens in the summer of 2014, you’ll have an extra lane at your disposal — going both directions on Downtown interstates.

Getting from one highway to the other will be less harried because cloverleaf loops will include smoother curves.

The jerks who cut you off — or the jerks who get in your way — will be less of a nuisance because exits and entrances won’t be bunched as tightly.

Hazardous lane changes now prohibited by signs (but often ignored) will be made impossible by design.

But first comes 30-some months of construction, when the morning commute, the dash to the airport, the drive home and the night out on the town all are going to be a big pain in the asphalt.

“It’s going to be a project — more than any other really in the last few decades — that’s going to be transformational for central Ohio,” said Chester Jourdan, director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission.

Of the ramp closings and other disruptions to come first, Columbus Public Service Director Mark Kelsey said: “This is the price we have to pay.”

The three-year, $200 million interchange project, set to begin in earnest after eight more Downtown ramps close in coming weeks, isn’t the most expensive in central Ohio history. Local interstates cost $270 million to build in the 1950s and 1960s, which is almost $2.1 billion in today’s dollars. An entire series of planned reconstructions — Downtown legs of I-71, I-70 and the two interchanges where they merge and separate will be done after I-71/670 is completed — won’t even come close with an estimated $1.6 billion price tag.

It’s not exaggerating, though, to call these upcoming projects the most disruptive.

As I-70, I-71, I-270 and I-670 went in, people still had their long-established ways of getting around. Interstates, though, are now the primary way into, out of, through and around Downtown.

Speeds through the construction zone will be lowered to 45 mph, and by mid-November, 16 of 38 Downtown ramps on I-71 and I-670 will have been shut down, some for good and some for up to two years.

The Ohio Department of Transportation has set up hot lines, websites and social-media accounts to keep people updated on lane closings. But officials warn up front that getting around won’t always be easy.

“There’s just too much going on in too small a space,” ODOT project manager Brad Jones told Downtown business representatives recently.

Although ramps have been closing since late September, road crews will become much more visible within the next two or three weeks, said Nancy Burton, spokeswoman for the department’s District 6, the central Ohio regional office overseeing design and construction. CH2M Hill and Kokosing Construction Co. were selected in April as lead contractors for the project.

First up, Burton said, will be the demolition of a section of I-670 north of the Greater Columbus Convention Center. Traffic on eastbound I-670 will be rerouted across the median into westbound lanes just past the Short North cap. It will cross back at 4th Street.

In the spring, construction will hit its peak with 300 workers on the job. By 2014, crews will have rebuilt 1.8 miles of roadway, 22 bridges and 28 retaining walls.

Every day, more than 137,000 cars and trucks drive through the I-71/670 interchange and other Downtown highways, which were designed for about half that number. The volume has created dangers that didn’t exist decades ago, state officials say, and the area averages two crashes every day.

The reconstructed interchange will be designed to handle traffic volumes projected through 2030. It will make driving easier not just for commuters and others who use Downtown highways frequently, Jourdan said. It also will make Columbus a more attractive loca tion for businesses, particularly those with big distribution operations.

“It’s the east-west, north-south connector for our country,” he said.

From its early stages, state and city officials have said they’ve looked at rebuilding the Downtown corridor as more than a transportation project. Planning has spanned the terms of three governors, four ODOT directors, three Columbus Department of Public Service directors and 15 City Council members.

Officials say the reconstruction is a chance to heal scars inflicted 60 years ago when highways cut through neighborhoods of the Near East Side, Olde Towne East, German Village and the Brewery District.

“We probably weren’t as sensitive to communities and neighborhoods as we should have been,” ODOT Director Jerry Wray acknowledged two weeks ago at a ceremony on the bridge that carries Long Street traffic over I-71.

New bridges over the highway will be wider, walkable and more scenic than the utilitarian spans they’ll replace. On Long Street, for example, the bridge will be landscaped and feature a “cultural wall” of notable people who’ve called the Near East Side home.

The bridge will be strong enough and wide enough to support development (think Short North cap) if developers become interested.

“When that freeway cut through, it eliminated histories, stores, residences, little things that had been there for years,” said Annie Ross-Womack, director of the Long Street Business Association. “It separated neighbors.”

The state has conducted more than 300 public-input sessions over the past decade, Burton said. At one session in August, transportation officials asked people to vote on bridge colors and design features.

rvitale@dispatch.com

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